Alex and Carson

How We Met

We met the summer before we both started college at UC Santa Barbara. We had come to a house party of a mutual friend separately, and someone introduced us since we’d both be starting at UCSB the following month. We played a friendly game of beer pong against each other (it’s still under debate who actually won), and even though we both were in a relationship with other people at the time, Carson claims he always knew we would get together one day.

Fast forward a year and a half and we are both home for the holidays, with little to do. We randomly connected and hung out a couple times during those 2 weeks at home, and even more once back in Santa Barbara. From there, we became pretty much inseparable and became one of those few college romances that actually make it!

How He Asked

Carson made up an elaborate story that I totally bought. We’d been talking about getting a kitten for a while, and one day he told me that his friend was hosting a cat adoption fair at a local park. Perfect! We made plans to stop by there before heading off to meet his parents for dinner at a nice restaurant, where they had some news to tell us (also not real plans).

We show up to the park all dressed up for dinner and approach a table with one animal carrier on it with a little kitten inside and no one else around. Strange, I thought, I guess all the other kittens got adopted and the event was almost over! To my surprise, Carson opens the cage and reaches in to take the kitten out. It was the cutest little Calico (just what I had always told him I wanted)! He then points out that he collar has the name “Berkeley” on it, which is what I told him I wanted to name our future kitten! I freaked out that he had already bought this little baby cat for me!

He then turned over the name tag on the collar to it’s other side, which read “Alex, will you marry me?” I couldn’t believe it!

I started crying and, honestly, blacked out while he got down on one knee and pulled out the most beautiful custom made ring I have ever seen!

To top it off, out pops my sister (who lives in Los Angeles!), his brother, and his sister-in-law who captured the whole thing on camera and video and celebrated with a bottle of champagne with us.